new Maroon Clownfish starving itself and spitting out all of its food for 8 or 9 days

[blazin'reefer]

It sounds like you have everything you need. I'd get started right away as you need time to get your salinity and temp right, and that can take a day or two.

My position is based on a personal experience of a few weeks ago, where I lost a fish in QT. A timely water change would have saved the fish, but I had nothing ready.

Your better off anticipating the worst case scenario and not needing it.

Thats a good point and i pretty much do have everything just seems like an extremely daunting task to treat them all mostly because i dont think id be able to get them out without removing the entire rockscape aswell but it is definitely better to be prepared just incase.

If it is something i can treat with prazi or metro or anything reef safe i would probably just do an in tank treatment but i guess i could get one of the 30g pre-emptively filled with the 30ppm ro water and get it heated and everything aswell so i dont have to wait for hours or days to fill and reach temp if i do need it. Thanks for the suggestion. Not sure how i would even treat them all though when i cant really figure out what is going on with the clown. Sorry for your recent loss aswell. I am hesitant to add salt if i do fill one since i dont know if i will forsure use it or what levels i would need to make it to without knowing the specific disease though and it only takes like a few hours to mix to be safe to use for fish in a pinch aslong as i move some cycled filter material, add bottle bacteria, and have water made and heated.

 

[Dom]

Thats a good point and i pretty much do have everything just seems like an extremely daunting task to treat them all mostly because i dont think id be able to get them out without removing the entire rockscape aswell but it is definitely better to be prepared just incase.

If it is something i can treat with prazi or metro or anything reef safe i would probably just do an in tank treatment but i guess i could get one of the 30g pre-emptively filled with the 30ppm ro water and get it heated and everything aswell so i dont have to wait for hours or days to fill and reach temp if i do need it. Thanks for the suggestion. Not sure how i would even treat them all though when i cant really figure out what is going on with the clown. Sorry for your recent loss aswell. I am hesitant to add salt if i do fill one since i dont know if i will forsure use it or what levels i would need to make it to without knowing the specific disease though and it only takes like a few hours to mix to be safe to use for fish in a pinch aslong as i move some cycled filter material, add bottle bacteria, and have water made and heated.

A daunting task indeed!

Careful with in-tank treatment. As I understand it, it is difficult to maintain therapeutic levels of copper in a tank with live rock. I think it is because the live rock absorbs the copper.

I also understand that copper will eventually leech out post-treatment.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

And for me, a bigger concern is that "He was initially put in to my 55 gallon display".

If this is a disease issue, the display tank has been infected.

OP May want to set up a hospital tank and be ready.

Could be, but there are some clownfish issues, like coccidea and some viruses that are not super contagious to other fish. Even Brooklynella won't take out a whole tank of fish like ich or velvet can.

Jay

 

[blazin'reefer]

A daunting task indeed!

Careful with in-tank treatment. As I understand it, it is difficult to maintain therapeutic levels of copper in a tank with live rock. I think it is because the live rock absorbs the copper.

I also understand that copper will eventually leech out post-treatment.

Thanks and yeah i wont be using copper in the display since i have corals and inverts in it and dont want the rock or silicone to re-release it. hoping it is more in the worm family if anything since i already have prazi and metro and both are reef safe to some degree. Plus i live in canada too so getting copper could be difficult aswell since no fish stores carry it anymore.

 

[blazin'reefer]

Could be, but there are some clownfish issues, like coccidea and some viruses that are not super contagious to other fish. Even Brooklynella won't take out a whole tank of fish like ich or velvet can.

Jay

interesting, i knew brook was most dangerous to clowns but thats a slight relief that it wont take out my whole tank if it was that. I didnt know about the other virus' and clown specific diseases either.

 

[blazin'reefer]

A bit of an update i spent like 2 hours calling fish stores today looking for live food and not even one of the 4 or 5 in my city carry any of them, the one store said they keep trying to bring them in but they are on back order. Blackworms look so easy to breed too i dont know why no where even carrys them.

I was sick today so i didnt go to the store to check if they have lrs or the other pellet that was recommended but i got my mom to stop there and grab entice quickly on her way out of town. I just fed the regular foods mixed with entice and he relatively actively chased down every piece of food for about 10 minutes but still the same thing spitting every single piece out, today i tried hikari brineshrimp, mysis, crushed blood worms and flake and pellet all mixed together. There is a slight chance it got one tiny piece down that i saw but i might have just missed where it spit that piece out. i also tried some frozen pea mash blached but same thing. Only watched close for like the first 5 minutes after feeding so not sure if it might have eaten anything after but still nothing kept down that i can see after feeding.

some stores said i should call pet stores in the biggest city near me and ask if they can ship some to me since it is 3 hours away but i dont know how valid of an option that would be since the clown is likely starving now. the cheeks also look pretty skinny today aswell now and one side looks very very slightly lighter color than the other but that might be me reading into nothing looking for the problem.

Im not sure what to do at this point other than keep trying and keep the water relatively clean. If anyone out there has had anything similar with clowns and anything they got them to keep down after trying so much for so long it would be highly appreciated as i hate watching it look at me and not knowing how to help. I did see one video on youtube from "majestic aquariums" saying if you ever have a fish that spits its food out and is getting skinnier despite trying to feed him to de-worm and also a fish vet write up saying similar so that kinda puts me back on the catch 22 of if i dose it might completely kill its appetite or be the completely wrong treatment and if i dont then i didnt treat appropriately if that was the cause. opinions appreciated.

 

[Magnapinna]

Yeah i never quarantined because when i was researching it i kept seeing about fish dying in quarantine anyways so figured id roll the dice to start and not bother since im not the best at reading fish and thought if i killed them learning to quarantine i would feel terrible.

The thing is, while nobody wants fish to die, that's specifically why quarantine is done. At that point you really don't know if they would have lived or died regardless, and you'd rather them die in QT than in your display and potentially contaminate it. It works the other way around too --- pathogenic organisms are omnipresent in established tanks and transport/acclimation is inherently stressful. The point of a QT tank is not only to protect your display from any new nasties, but also to protect your new fish from the inevitable existing nasties which stress can weaken them to. QT gives you a chance to observe new additions (I personally don't trust 'pre-quarantined' arrivals) and introduce them to your water conditions with an all-around reduction in spread of disease.

 

[Idech]

Did you ask the store to feed the fish in front of you ? If you saw it eat that day, then stress may be why it’s not eating.

I would keep the light low or even off and target feed him with a pipette (as close go its mouth as possible) small quantities 4-5 times a day. The moment he takes one bite, he will start wanting to eat more and more.

 

[blazin'reefer]

The thing is, while nobody wants fish to die, that's specifically why quarantine is done. At that point you really don't know if they would have lived or died regardless, and you'd rather them die in QT than in your display and potentially contaminate it. It works the other way around too --- pathogenic organisms are omnipresent in established tanks and transport/acclimation is inherently stressful. The point of a QT tank is not only to protect your display from any new nasties, but also to protect your new fish from the inevitable existing nasties which stress can weaken them to. QT gives you a chance to observe new additions (I personally don't trust 'pre-quarantined' arrivals) and introduce them to your water conditions with an all-around reduction in spread of disease.

That makes sense, i actually researched quarantining for over a year before i even started a reef tank but when it came time to get my fish i was overwhelmed with info and was worried id kill my first order forsure and it was a big order. That was also right around the time canada banned basically all fish meds too so i just kinda dumbly added them to the tank and burried my head in the sand no pun intented lol. I guess maybe its time i look into setting up an actual quarantine if it is still of benefit. time and space and extra salt being used was and honestly still kinda is another deterant so i will have to see if i can find a good long term place to put one and if i can then bite the bullet. I definitely dont like leaving my tank vulnerable to literally a whole ocean of parasites either.

 

[blazin'reefer]

Did you ask the store to feed the fish in front of you ? If you saw it eat that day, then stress may be why it’s not eating.

I would keep the light low or even off and target feed him with a pipette (as close go its mouth as possible) small quantities 4-5 times a day. The moment he takes one bite, he will start wanting to eat more and more.

the fish was a gift from my mom for christmas so i wasnt there when she got him to see him eat but when i went to the store saying he wont eat they said he was eatting a bunch before she bought him and gave me some of the spirulina brine for free and said he devoured that stuff. I guess they could just be saying he was eatting but thats all i really have to go off.

I have kept the light off the last 2 days since he moved to the 3g aio but will probably need to turn them on soon for the corals which were already not all 100 before the dark period. Thanks for the advice. I have tried feeding him with a pipette for literally an hour a day for the first week he was in the 55 though and either had no interest and would swim away from me or would try to eat as much as possible but spit each piece out everytime and that has repeated in the 3g. in the 3g i have just been turning off the built in sump and letting the food circulate the tank for about an hour letting him chase it down and he catches a bunch just always spits it back out.

 

[blazin'reefer]

First, you can rule out the water issues with the RO unit, that would not be the cause.

The picture is too fuzzy to see anything, and you would likely notice any issues we would in a picture. A clear video would give me some indication of its breathing rate, and that could help with diagnosis.

Are there other fish in the same tank? How are they doing?

At this point - the fish either came in to you with some disease (as evidenced by the sunken belly and mucus feces, or there was an acclimation issue (like going from a low salinity at the store to a high salinity in your tank).

Here is an article I wrote on fish anorexia:

Chronic Anorexia in Aquarium Fishes

Don't fall into the trap of assuming the fish will begin feeding when it gets hungry enough, or conclude it must be eating something, just not when you are watching.

reefs.com

Jay

also i did take a video of him breathing today for 15 seconds when he appeared to be breathing heavier than usual and zoomed in close and counted as best i could but he was in his corner and wasnt the clearest so hard to tell. I believe it was around 32.5-35 per 15 seconds but could have been as high as 37.5 maybe 40. So i think his resperation is like 130-150 maybe but that is faster than it normally looks.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

also i did take a video of him breathing today for 15 seconds when he appeared to be breathing heavier than usual and zoomed in close and counted as best i could but he was in his corner and wasnt the clearest so hard to tell. I believe it was around 32.5-35 per 15 seconds but could have been as high as 37.5 maybe 40. So i think his resperation is like 130-150 maybe but that is faster than it normally looks.

That is pretty fast, it should be less than 100 beats per minute. To me, that indicates a more systemic problem, not just that it doesn't like the food you are offering. I've never seen a clownfish that required live food to get it to feed....

Jay

 

[blazin'reefer]

That is pretty fast, it should be less than 100 beats per minute. To me, that indicates a more systemic problem, not just that it doesn't like the food you are offering. I've never seen a clownfish that required live food to get it to feed....

Jay

thanks, i did it again today and it seemed a bit slower around 120 per minute but i am wondering if this could be due to ammonia spike as i have been trying to feed that tank more than normal as there was no fish before. I will do a water change tonight and see.

I was also just reading one of your comments on another post by a reefer on here about clowns being prone to hexamita infections upon arrival and i also read on another site that the symptoms are lethargy, lack of apetite, stringy white feces, tattered fins and hole in head. My clown has all those symptoms other than the hole in head. How would i determine if it is likely hexamita or stress and starvation causing him not to eat? and when can i safely say hes not just going to calm down and start eatting at some point and therefore try something? Obviously i dont want to make him worse though. I do have metro if it was hexamita.

 

[blazin'reefer]

i just did about a 10-12% water change because he was looking visibly distressed curled up in a corner and breathing fast, during the change i noticed him flop on the sand bed for the first time for a second and then right himself and he has been just sitting in the same spot on the sand not moving barely at all but still upright. so im not sure if this is a part of the lethargy or if he is starting to starve to death or what just know i hate watching this and not knowing the right course of action. i have been adding microbacter 7 every day and also tried to only feed once or maybe twice a day a small amount and let it circulate around him but it seems hes chasing them less now too. Even though when he did chase it he just spit everything out anyways everytime.

 

[blazin'reefer]

That is pretty fast, it should be less than 100 beats per minute. To me, that indicates a more systemic problem, not just that it doesn't like the food you are offering. I've never seen a clownfish that required live food to get it to feed....

Jay

also his head doesnt have holes but kinda does look dented a bit on both sides more than normal on the white stripe part which maybe could be pits from hexamita? if you look close at the last pictures i posted of him you can see what im talking about.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

also his head doesnt have holes but kinda does look dented a bit on both sides more than normal on the white stripe part which maybe could be pits from hexamita? if you look close at the last pictures i posted of him you can see what im talking about.

It’s complicated. Hexamita is suspected in causing head pitting in freshwater fish, but that has not been confirmed in marine fish. Hexamita and related protozoans like spironucleus are commonly found in the guts of marine fish. Under some conditions, these protozoans grow in number and start to cause disease symptoms. This can really only be diagnosed with a microscope.
Metronidazole in the food at a rate of 1% can help. This is bitter and many fish won’t eat it, and besides, your fish isn’t really eating. You can put the Metro in the water - use the label dose on your product.

Jay

 

[blazin'reefer]

It’s complicated. Hexamita is suspected in causing head pitting in freshwater fish, but that has not been confirmed in marine fish. Hexamita and related protozoans like spironucleus are commonly found in the guts of marine fish. Under some conditions, these protozoans grow in number and start to cause disease symptoms. This can really only be diagnosed with a microscope.
Metronidazole in the food at a rate of 1% can help. This is bitter and many fish won’t eat it, and besides, your fish isn’t really eating. You can put the Metro in the water - use the label dose on your product.

Jay

911 please help @Jay Hemdal @vetteguy53081 @Dom @Magnapinna and @ anyone else who can help i forgot to tag.

I tried dosing the nano tank but it was too late and the clown died like 2 or 3 days after which really sucked but whats even worse is it is spreading whatever it is.

My main display is infected, my yellow damsel hasnt eaten the last few days and anything he tries he spits out instantly and now has a skinny sunken in belly aswell and he was the fattest fish in the whole tank before so i believe he has the same thing the clown had, but the real dagger is my tang is also doing the same thing but not as much and still eatting some. The green clown goby hasnt eatten over the last few days either and has some sort of weird growth on him that at first i thought was flukes but now wondering about maybe lymphocystis or some fungus? he hasnt eatten in a few days either. I did just finish my second dose of prazi at like 80% strength dose cause i was worried about overdosing but it doesnt seem to have helped. Here is a list of the fish and the symptoms they are showing.

Chocolate mimic tang- flashing a bunch, head shaking a bunch, twitching fins, reduced appetite before dosing prazi, body sort of looks dirty with what look like small black dots which i thought was black ich so was also partly why i dosed prazi, now swimming into flow almost all night every night and still flashing and everything else which is making me wonder if he could have velvet but there are no noticable white dots i can see, only brown/ black sort of dirty looking spots and sometimes breathing a bit fast and has had this the last week or 2 now.


yellow damsel- same exact symptoms as the clownfish had before dying, barely trying to eat anything and spitting out whatever it does, head shaking, no flashing at all, slightly fast breathing i think, shrunken belly, reclusive. no white dots.

green clown goby- weird whitish/clear growths on his head and skin bigger looking than ich or flukes and as of yesterday zero interest in food, would usually come wait on my monticap for food everytime i feed but now hides and doesnt even try.

The rest of the fish are a-symptomatic as of right now.

I thought that it was from the prazi the lack of appetite but after changing like 15% of the water today it is still the same. I am currently thinking about trying metro in food but the yellow damsel wont eat it anyways and also i have a blue and yellow coral banded shrimp that wasnt cheap i dont really want to poisson him either and have no idea how to catch and move him. I was also thinking as a last ditch effort hailmary to try hydrogen peroxide dosing by hand for parasites but have no idea if that would treat if it was something internal aswell? I dont have a quarantine/ hospital tank and dont have copper on hand but i can order some tomorrow and start setting it up if thats the best/only option but it wouldnt be here for probably atleast a couple weeks and dont even know if that would do anything.

If you were all in my shoes please give me some advice on what you would try based on my description as i dont want to lose more of the fish if possible. if hydrogen peroxide and my 10w uv i just hooked back up would work that would obviously be preffered since i can do that in tank i believe.

It appears to have really bit me in the butt not listening about quarantine, i had no issues with any fish for years and hadnt added anything in months before i added the plague clown and now seems i might have more than 1 thing going on.

Thank you to anyone who helps in advance i am at a loss of ideas almost. i can try taking pictures today if needed too but the lights are out now.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Sounds like either gill flukes or velvet. Pics or video would really help to see breathing rates and behavior to best assess what is happening
If flukes you will see increased breathing, darting, scratching, yawning and loss of appetite as examples

 

[Jay Hemdal]

911 please help @Jay Hemdal @vetteguy53081 @Dom @Magnapinna and @ anyone else who can help i forgot to tag.

I tried dosing the nano tank but it was too late and the clown died like 2 or 3 days after which really sucked but whats even worse is it is spreading whatever it is.

My main display is infected, my yellow damsel hasnt eaten the last few days and anything he tries he spits out instantly and now has a skinny sunken in belly aswell and he was the fattest fish in the whole tank before so i believe he has the same thing the clown had, but the real dagger is my tang is also doing the same thing but not as much and still eatting some. The green clown goby hasnt eatten over the last few days either and has some sort of weird growth on him that at first i thought was flukes but now wondering about maybe lymphocystis or some fungus? he hasnt eatten in a few days either. I did just finish my second dose of prazi at like 80% strength dose cause i was worried about overdosing but it doesnt seem to have helped. Here is a list of the fish and the symptoms they are showing.

Chocolate mimic tang- flashing a bunch, head shaking a bunch, twitching fins, reduced appetite before dosing prazi, body sort of looks dirty with what look like small black dots which i thought was black ich so was also partly why i dosed prazi, now swimming into flow almost all night every night and still flashing and everything else which is making me wonder if he could have velvet but there are no noticable white dots i can see, only brown/ black sort of dirty looking spots and sometimes breathing a bit fast and has had this the last week or 2 now.


yellow damsel- same exact symptoms as the clownfish had before dying, barely trying to eat anything and spitting out whatever it does, head shaking, no flashing at all, slightly fast breathing i think, shrunken belly, reclusive. no white dots.

green clown goby- weird whitish/clear growths on his head and skin bigger looking than ich or flukes and as of yesterday zero interest in food, would usually come wait on my monticap for food everytime i feed but now hides and doesnt even try.

The rest of the fish are a-symptomatic as of right now.

I thought that it was from the prazi the lack of appetite but after changing like 15% of the water today it is still the same. I am currently thinking about trying metro in food but the yellow damsel wont eat it anyways and also i have a blue and yellow coral banded shrimp that wasnt cheap i dont really want to poisson him either and have no idea how to catch and move him. I was also thinking as a last ditch effort hailmary to try hydrogen peroxide dosing by hand for parasites but have no idea if that would treat if it was something internal aswell? I dont have a quarantine/ hospital tank and dont have copper on hand but i can order some tomorrow and start setting it up if thats the best/only option but it wouldnt be here for probably atleast a couple weeks and dont even know if that would do anything.

If you were all in my shoes please give me some advice on what you would try based on my description as i dont want to lose more of the fish if possible. if hydrogen peroxide and my 10w uv i just hooked back up would work that would obviously be preffered since i can do that in tank i believe.

It appears to have really bit me in the butt not listening about quarantine, i had no issues with any fish for years and hadnt added anything in months before i added the plague clown and now seems i might have more than 1 thing going on.

Thank you to anyone who helps in advance i am at a loss of ideas almost. i can try taking pictures today if needed too but the lights are out now.

Can you post videos of the affected fish? I'm trying to get a sense of how they look.

 

[blazin'reefer]

Sounds like either gill flukes or velvet. Pics or video would really help to see breathing rates and behavior to best assess what is happening
If flukes you will see increased breathing, darting, scratching, yawning and loss of appetite as examples

the weird thing is all three have some different symptoms and some the same, atleast it seems that way to me. The tang does have all of those symptoms other than i havent seen him yawning really but its possible i just havent seen when he did. I did also complete 2 80% doses of prazi aswell a week apart.

Can you post videos of the affected fish? I'm trying to get a sense of how they look.

I still never learned how to post videos to youtube and also link them to here as i have never done it but as soon as the lights turn on in a few hours i will post a couple pictures as clear as i can of each affected fish to start. If they arent able to show anything determinate then just let me know and i will spend a bit of time trying to figure out posting a video.